Cafe Blog Summer 2010: Launching the Listeners!

A sunny day, our market square, alongside the folk dancers people were painting , listening, relaxing….

There were some magical moments at the launch of our Community Café Listeners in St Neots market square, when people came together out of curiosity and stayed to join in the Market Art Experience painting a community ‘wallpaper’ collage, to vote in our logo competition and talk to our new volunteer Listeners team.

Some moments were surreal, surrounded as we were, in the sunshine by the colourful folk festival dancers in extravagant costumes, bubble haired clowns and a man in a tall top hot and baggy trousers promoting his personal art exhibition – and when gusts of untimely wind sent us chasing brochures floating across the market square.

But a dream came true to for a young visitor to the stand, Katharine Rutter, when she told volunteer Listener Dave how big a fan she was of Jamiroquai when out of the blue strode guitarist Rob Harris to talk to his mum Anne, one of our Community Café Listeners! Not one to miss a trick, within seconds Dave presented Katherine with a brochure for Rob to autograph and set up a photo opportunity for them all!

Another winner was Emma Southern of Eaton Socon, whose coffee cup entry cleverly spells the initials of the project. It found favour with many visitors and shoppers and won the competition. The Listeners are also delighted with their new brand, and Emma is equally pleased with her £100 prize, kindly donated by the Mayor, Cllr Gordon Thorpe. Runner up was local design agency Tagbrand whose ‘Hear to Listen’ entry will be incorporated as our strapline. Tagbrand has kindly donated their prize money back to the Community Café and will be used to train further volunteers. The competition entries can now be found here.

We thought we’d have some fun too helping develop our community. Check out our 12 Ways to Change the World feature on freebie recycling – FREECYCLE. The market art experience was great fun and despite everyone saying they couldn’t paint (especially me - Julia) , they’ve created a unique and colourful wallpaper which will be included in our entry later this year to Art for All week - and, yes, we’re planning more art experiences!

Thanks to our very special volunteers we can run other free community workshops during the summer too and are taking names now, so contact me to register yourself and I’ll be in touch soon about dates and venues:

• Taking good pictures with your mobile phone
• Graffiti art
• Confidence building

Our next volunteer Listeners training session takes place over two days on June 26th and July 24th. If you would like to know more about volunteering, or booking a Listener, or to reserve a place at one of the community workshops contact me.